Bone mass/arterial degredation after PCT

I looked at that N=1 case study when it first came out. I also listened to a few different nutritionists and other experts discuss nutrition during long term extreme exercise.

The general consensus was that for 30 days or less, diet didn’t have a huge detrimental effect on your over all health, but with extreme exertion, and longer time frames, it did. Also, high level athletes that have dietitians and nutritionists as part of the team, are so closely monitored that the slightest differences in blood, heart rate or urine triggers a dietary or exercise adjustment. Thats not even remotely possible on a thru hike.

Their recommendations were to eat as healthy as possible all the time, but for short stretches do whats needed or convenient in the situation. Long term needs much more planning and effort to stay healthy.

None of this is practiced by most people in the US, and finding someone on trail eating healthy is even more difficult.

That’s why there has been a trend toward elementary and high schools eliminating junk food from vending machines and cafeterias…

That went out the door with Covid FYI. During 2020-2021 school year many schools were serving nothing but processed nasty stuff bought from DOD (yes, Dept of Defense) as they were serving all meals free, to any student that wanted it. It was crap, low end, high carb crap. Literally giving Pop Tarts as “breakfast”, and high sugar yogurt as lunch.

The problem about long distance hiking is the lack of certain foods. Going 5 months without many vegetables isn’t a good idea. High consumption of carbs, sugar and sodium add up – even with 25 mile days and youth on your side. Minerals are important – and they get flushed out easily in hot weather – and are often found in produce.

Just my thoughts.

“That went out the door with Covid FYI…”

Maybe so… but a reaction to an emergency does not change our nutritional requirement for good health… which was the point, eh?

I’ve tried not comment on this thread because I have nothing but uneducated conjecture (like most others I suspect). I’ve failed: I think the key is sudden, massive weight loss. I believe studies have shown that being a healthy weight is great for you but cannibalizing your body is very stressful on your systems. For millions of years we have developed systems to prevent starving to death. We have not developed good systems for maintaining healthy weight in an era of over abundance. Long distance athletic events just might not be particularly good for you and particularly true if they cause your weight to yo-yo.

It’s great to talk about a healthy diet, fresh fruit and vegetables… all of that is important, but people have shown they can live an awful long time eating crap. As someone else mentioned: I do find it funny the author attributed the health issues to diet without actually reporting the diet.

He didn’t lose weight. His data is in the report in Section 3: Results:

Weight (kg)
Before: 80.1
After: 79.3

He had excellent health metrics prior to the hike.

> As someone else mentioned: I do find it funny the author attributed the health issues to diet without actually reporting the diet.

Although not detailed, he does report it, as I mentioned here:

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/bone-mass-arterial-degredation-after-pct/#post-3767597

“Before the hike, the hiker was mainly consuming rice, fresh vegetables, chicken, and beef. During the hike, the hiker consumed more calorically dense food items such as candy, pastries, nuts, jerky, dried fruit, ramen noodles, instant mashed potatoes, protein bars, and peanut butter. ”

He also speaks to authors in other articles regarding this study, where he mentions basically the same foods.

“Here was someone healthier than 99.9% of Americans, at very low-risk for cardio-vascular disease, very physically active every day, showing these changes. … We took someone who was super healthy and brought them down a fair amount in 112 days.”

(from https://www.colorado.edu/asmagazine/2021/03/30/junk-food-and-big-miles-may-not-add-how-thru-hikers-hope)

I agree with your general sentiments regarding weight yo-yo: I think the data is pretty substantial which shows it isn’t healthy for you. In fact, I recall studies showing that if you’re overweight (to an extent, no doubt), it’s better to just keep the weight rather than lose it, regain it, lose it again, etc.

Maybe someone has said this already, but tangential to diet, recovery is vitally important. Activity is when things break down, recovery is when things grow stronger. I can’t imagine his pace allowed for adequate recovery. With that assumption, measuring a breakdown or bodily loss immediately upon finishing seems reasonable.

The researchers note how they wished they had taken more measurements a month later to see if the numbers bounced back or improved with more time.

He hiked 4052 km in 112 days; 92 days were spent hiking, 20 days were spent off-trail as recovery days.

Maybe so… but a reaction to an emergency does not change our nutritional requirement for good health… which was the point, eh?

Good luck getting it back though. Schools are fighting it. In the name of equity many kept the free meals for all, but because the sweet, sweet Covid Fed money dried up, the food will still be worse than literally prison food.

As a background, prior to Covid, in 2019/2020 school year I sat on a panel to bring better food to our school district. We worked with the school district and the 3rd party Chartwells, that the district uses. We had to work around the massive red tape the Feds make the 3rd parties follow. They are legally required to serve certain foods – and cannot deviate. And they must be bought in very strict manner. To use local farms – to even buy produce from the school farm (we have one of the best in the state) – you have to follow very tight regulations. It is nearly impossible.

Then Covid happened, and with our shut down happy governor, kids didn’t even return to school fulltime till last fall (2021/22 year). Only this school year did the meals start to return to “normal” and the panel has never been set back up – they used Covid as a way to keep it all down.

It’s beige food. IT’S ALL BEIGE. It’s salty, has no flavor and is full of cheap oils. And most of American schools are doing this because they went with 3rd party companies to keep cost down.

We cannot expect children to learn healthy eating if we go by the cheapest crap the Feds sell to schools.

This is one of the many reasons I parted ways with our school district and homeschool. We can teach our children to do better with eating.

He hiked 4052 km in 112 days; 92 days were spent hiking, 20 days were spent off-trail as recovery days.

Thanks for calling that out!

This is one of the many reasons I parted ways with our school district and homeschool. We can teach our children to do better with eating.

you can always send them with a bag lunch. I’m very glad to report school lunches are much better NNY. We have some great Food service directors. My wife works for Cornell teaching nutrition in schools daily. Never give up.

I still think, the author should have done the analysis again after 3 or 6 months to see what the parameters are. I mean of course the body is going to be beat up after such a strenuous effort. It would be similar to measuring a person after they ran a 100 miler. The body will be beat. I am not sure why we expect the body to be in better shape after the PCT or any endurance event. That seems only natural that the body is in bad shape or whatever after the effort.

The key question is if the body recovers after a few months. That is a more important question. I think this is a silly study as far as I am concerned.

“The body will be beat. I am not sure why we expect the body to be in better shape after the PCT or any endurance event.”

true. Which begs the question: why do this? Any other activity which causes major stress and worse on the body, like smoking, is discouraged. In our community, we applaud extreme events. I’ve read any number of first person accounts of attempts at the FKTT of the John Muir trail, where the author reports hallucinating and major body breakdown in under a week. Why do this; or anyway, why admire this? Most here would frown on those who binge on drugs and alcohol over a week, but that’s likely less debilitating than an attempt at the fastest known time on the JMT.

In the animal kingdom, the male flaunts his strength, ability, toughness, and everything else, in order to maximise his chances of breeding. He does it to attract mates and to see off the other male competition. This is generally accepted.

What is not always that readily accepted is the the human race is part of the animal kingdom. But we are.

Cheers

Well, have at butting your head against the male neighbor’s upstairs every spring, Roger! I for one have moved on. Sure, I’m an animal. But the kind of animal that builds houses and airplanes and cures cancer. I can make decisions about my behavior.

Humans make documentaries about animal behavior and broadcast them on television. It’s who we are. that’s not done in nature. In any case, an actual wild animal would never attempt a fastest known time on the JMT, or hike the PCT, for that matter. It’s not an animal thing. Too stupid! They leave it to the humans.

My point was that while the body is beat from such events, it does recover in time. So measure immediately after the event and again in 6 months or a year to see if the body has recovered. The body does get stronger from exercise – there is ample proof of that. Extreme events like Iron Man triathlon etc are more taxing to the body than PCT or thru hikes like that. FKT’s again are short term events – while we may not understand the motivation of some of the FKT events, I think it shows what a human body is capable of. There was this guy who did a FKT of the Arizonal Trail – 800 miles of it in 28 days. The amazing part was he was self-supported and carried all of his food – so his starting weight was 87 lbs! And his average daily mileage was 28 miles or so. The hike was probably in the mid-60’s. I find that incredibly amazing.

Backpacking is the closest to what pre-historic humans had to do. They had to jog/run for miles and miles chasing animals before the animal got tired and succumbed. Then they had to carry the animal back to where they lived.

I am reading this book – the Uphill Athlete where they talk about Kilian Jornet –  a famous runner – check him out. He is 35 now – but has been doing endurance events since he was a kid. He does 100 mile races etc. And he is fine.  I mean pretty much all athletes – olympians and others train upto 1000+ hours per year.  Kilian does 1300 hours per year of training. I would think this does not include the actual race events. There are so many hard endurance events like TdF cyclists who all live into their 70’s/80’s without any issues.

I wouldn’t worry about such studies – I mean they are interesting. But, the human body is capable of incredible things. It bounces back in time to re-do such events.

Six months after one stops smoking and drinking in excess, the body is in recovery. That doesn’t make the months spent smoking and drinking ‘healthy”.

Hi jscott

Yes, to be sure, humans do have some unique features. We can do wonderful things.

Like invading Ukraine and slaughtering civilians.

Cheers

All too true Roger. We are worse than beasts in many ways. Happy Holidays anyhow to all of us, if possible.

I don’t mean to discourage folks from hiking long trails. I do question the wisdom of extreme events that take months to recover from.

I question the wisdom of questioning the wisdom of those that seek out extreme events. We’re operating in the realm of passion, obsession, asceticism, romanticism, and poetry here…but definitely not rationality.

Rationality says to stay home and be comfortable.

Merry Christmas Jeffrey! Hope the guitar is playing well…

Sorry to be all Mr. Scrooge! Craig is correct. Follow your passions! I recant.

the realm of passion, obsession, asceticism, romanticism, and poetry here…but definitely not rationality.
To be sure! Very human.
Merry Xmas to all

I think this is a silly study as far as I am concerned.

I think it’s silly to call it a study at all.  It’s basically an observation, a single data point.  Okay, two data points–before and after.

I think Murali’s point about the body being beat up is dead on.  But did the beating happen progressively over the hike or during the last two weeks as the hiker “smelled the barn”?  Did he recover in a week, a month, 6 months, or never?  A real study would have anticipated these questions and tested accordingly.

On the thought of being beat up after a tough physical challenge, I’ll just note that virtually everything we do to our bodies to improve them injures them a bit in the short term (e.g., sore muscles “damaged” by pumping iron).  Does the hiker’s bone and arterial health come back better?  Too bad there’s not a study… :-)

“I’ll just note that virtually everything we do to our bodies to improve them injures them a bit in the short term…”

Yes, but there are degrees, no? A long day on  the slopes, or at the gym; or a hard six day hike isn’t  comparable to attempting a FKT of the JMT or a six month hike of the PCT, etc. Basketball players are in fantastic shape. They’re given games off during the season. They don’t play for the full game either. Sure, they could play those kinds of minutes, until injury or collapse. But it’s counterproductive and unhealthy. There have been studies…

Calcium and Vitamin D are essential to maintaining bone density, along with a balanced diet of macro and other micro nutrients.  A minimum of 1200 mg of calcium/day is recommended along with 800-1000 I.u. of vitamin D.  A maximum of ~500 mg of calcium can be absorbed in any 3-4 hour period, so stretch it out over  at least 3 doses to ensure complete absorption.  So advises my endocrinologist.  Minerals are only one sub set of bone composition, adequate protein and other micro nutrients such as Vit K are also required, so make sure you are eating a balanced diet with adequate protein, but make sure you are getting adequate calcium on a schedule that ensures it will be absorbed efficiently.